Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Parker
I shuffled out of the bathroom like a ninety-year-old who’d lost her Zimmer frame. “You’ve broken me.” We’d done nothing for the last thirty-six hours other than have sex, sleep, eat if we remembered, chug glasses of water, and have more sex.
In bed. In the shower for two. In the plunge pool. On the sofa. Back in the bed.
Tristan chuckled. “I have to admit, I’m exhausted. It’s like our own version of circuits.”
“It’s a lot better than circuits. Although my body would disagree with me right now.”
“You want to leave the room?” Tristan asked as I lifted the sheet and scooted into his arms—one of my favorite places to be.
“I mean, no. But if we don’t, I think I might endure permanent damage.”
“We could go and sit out by the pool. That way we’d be forced to—”
“Your penis would be forced under cover and I’d be safe?”
“For a while at least.”
“I should catch up on emails.” It was the first time I’d thought about work since the wedding.
“I think that’s the last thing you should do,” he replied. “Let’s get out of here and go have some fun.” He threw back the sheet and I watched while he got out of bed and headed to the bathroom. Sutton was right, Tristan was like a page out of an anatomy textbook.
“I’m getting in the shower.” He narrowed his eyes. “Alone. You’re going to stay there until I get out. Then you’re getting in the shower. And then we’re both going to leave this hotel room and go find something to do that’s not sexy and just about having fun.”
I fake pouted and watched his perfectly peachy bottom head into the bathroom.
Maybe he was right and it was time for a little fun.
Within the hour, we were both dressed and in the lobby, ready for our nonsexual fun. Everyone looked so happy and relaxed, and I realized it had been a while since I’d left London. Years more than that since I’d been away on a holiday that wasn’t about meeting donors for the charity.
Maybe my father knew exactly what he was doing when he gave Tristan and I this trip.
“We’re too late for Chichen Itza today,” Tristan said as he came back from the concierge desk. “And I wasn’t sure whether or not mountain biking was your jam.”
I grimaced. “No, it’s most definitely not my jam, my marmalade, or my chocolate spread.”
“Chocolate spread?” He raised his eyebrows in a suggestive pulse. “Now that gives me some ideas.” I elbowed him in the ribs. “You’re cute when you’re grumpy.”
“You’re not cute if you make me go mountain biking.”
He shook his head, slung his arms around my shoulders, and guided me out into the Mexican sunshine. “I have something much more fun planned. “You have a swimsuit under your dress, right?”
We headed toward the ocean, silky sand slipping between our toes. Tristan led me to the jetty that stretched out into aqua-blue ocean.
“What do you think. Can you handle it?” he asked as we got to the water’s edge.
“Handle what?”
He pointed toward a couple of pedalos that were tied to the timber piles.
“I’ve never been in one before. Is it fun?”
He shrugged. “No clue. Let’s find out.”
An employee of the hotel appeared and untied a bright yellow pedalo. “Your paddleboat, miss.” He helped me in from the jetty. “You know where you’re going?” he asked.
“Yup, we got it,” Tristan replied like he was a master pedalo rider.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Just going to explore the coastline for a bit and enjoy the sunshine. Is that okay?”
I shrugged. “At least my body will have a chance to recover from thirty-six hours in bed with you.”
“We don’t have to talk if it makes you feel any better.”
I laughed. “You know how to make a girl happy.”
“So many years wasted on building an armory of seduction techniques when all I needed to do was shut my mouth.”
We pedaled out from the jetty. Tristan steered us across the bay to where there were some rocks jutting out into the water.
“It’s really beautiful here.” The green water, bright blue sky, white sand—it triggered something in me. “It’s like how we’re programmed to find puppies cute. It’s the same with this place. It would be impossible to find anyone who didn’t think this place was glorious.”
I glanced across at him, his aviators covering those pale blue eyes, his tanned skin that looked even more golden than usual against the white of his t-shirt and the glare of the sun.
He looked like he belonged here, in a place where no one could say anything other than how beautiful, how relaxing, how completely glorious he was.
“What are you looking at?” he asked, his gaze straight ahead.
“You,” I replied. “You think we can have sex on a pedalo?”
We were just about to reach the rocks and Tristan nodded past them. “I’ve got a better place.”
Behind the rocks was a small secluded cove that sheltered a white sand beach.
“You knew this was here?” I asked as we peddled closer to the shore.
“They told me back at the hotel.”
“Wait, is that—oh my gosh, Tristan, did you arrange this?” To the side of the cove, under the shade of a collection of palm trees, was a low table covered with a pink-and-green tablecloth.
“I may have mentioned we were going to stop by.”
I glanced over at him and I could tell by his shy smile that he was happy he’d surprised me.
As we got nearer the shore, Tristan jumped out of the pedalo and pulled me onto the beach.
A waiter sprang into action, ran over and grabbed the rope, and wrapped it round a rock that protruded from the water.
Tristan rounded the pedalo and scooped me out of the contraption and carried me to dry land.
“It’s like you’re my knight in shining armor. Or swimming trunks.” I pressed my lips against his jaw. “How romantic.”
We both took a seat overlooking the ocean as the waiter poured us drinks, uncovered platters of food, and then called a speedboat to come and collect him. We were left with a radio and strict instructions to use it if we needed anything at all.
“This is amazing,” I said. “You arranged all this?”
“It’s very peaceful. And I need you to regain your strength.”
I circled the back of his neck with my fingers. “Same,” I said. “But it would be a shame not to take advantage of such a secluded spot.” I reached under his t-shirt and stroked my hand down his abs.
“You’re insatiable,” he said, shaking his head. “I need food and water before you have me again.”
“I knew you couldn’t handle me.”
He grinned as he dished up lunch for me first and then himself.
“I can’t believe you did all this.”
“It’s our honeymoon. If I can’t be romantic here, then when?”
“I know the wedding is a means to an end and everything, but is it weird that it feels less and less . . .”
“Like we’re pretending?” he asked. “Maybe because we’re not.”
I leaned and placed a kiss on his arm. “If that’s the case, then I’m pretty sure we can get creative with lunch.” I kneeled up, stripping off my dress and bikini top.
Tristan looked me up and down and groaned before reaching for his t-shirt and pulling it off.
“Oh no, Mr. Dubrow. You said you needed food and water first. So, food and water it is.” I lay on the sand and placed a row of sliced fruit from my collarbone, between my breasts, over my stomach, and down to where my bikini bottoms started.
“You look good enough to eat, Mrs. Dubrow. Or is it Frazer-Dubrow. Did you decide?”
Before I could tell him I was keeping my own name, Tristan bent and took a bite of melon from my stomach, his tongue lingering on my skin and making it tingle. He moved up to the next slice and the next, then trailed his tongue between my breasts for some pineapple.
I clenched my hands at his breath on my skin and tried not to arch my back at the feel of his tongue. With his teeth he trailed a piece of cold melon from the center of my chest across to circle my nipple, toying with it and turning it hard and sharp.
“Hey, you’re meant to be eating,” I admonished him.
He swallowed the piece of fruit and began feeding on my breast, his teeth replacing the cold, hard melon. I shuddered and he gasped and sat back on his knees.
“I’m leaving you sticky,” he said. “That won’t do.
” He retraced his steps back down my body, sucking and licking.
I had no idea if it was the juice of the fruit he was after or whether he was just trying to drive me wild.
He arranged himself between my legs, eating his way down, down, down until he reached my bikini bottoms. “I’m not quite done feasting,” he said, his breath hot over my sex.
He rolled down the fabric and his tongue continued the trail down until it hit my clit.
I couldn’t help but moan. I’d been left waiting too long.
He chuckled and began to lick and flick and circle, my hips swaying as if trying to escape because the pleasure was just too much to bear.
His large hands grabbed the fabric of my bikini bottoms and stripped me of them in one swift movement before pinning my hips to the sand.
“You’re not going to escape.” He bowed his head and licked me from back to front almost perfunctorily, like it was a recce for a future mission. I almost came on the spot.
He chuckled. “Oh, Cream Puff. Not so soon.”
I tried to take a deep breath to push back my climax but it was as if I had rocks in my lungs and I was trying to race up a mountain. “Tristan.”
“I’m right here,” he said, before plunging his tongue into me.
I cried out and a growl of pleasure echoed from between my thighs, travelling like a wave up my body and down my limbs.
His tongue pushed firmly up and down my folds and another burst of pleasure set off a tsunami of bliss, followed by another and another until I was crying out because I just couldn’t take any more.
I thought I might just burst with how he made me feel.
Just before I passed out, my orgasm ripped through me like a dam had burst and I reached for Tristan, needing him to hold me.
As I floated back down from my climax, he pressed a kiss between my collarbones, one on my neck and another on my forehead.